Special Invitation to Readers:

The web site of Literature and Medicine includes a feature of electronic letters to the editor, in which readers are invited to respond to articles in the journal. Readers are always invited to respond to all articles, but I especially repeat this invitation to you here. The dialogue that follows Gayle Whittier’s “The Ethics of Metaphor and the Infant Body in Pain” begins a conversation, between the author and physician John Lantos, that just scratches the surface of the many issues that Whittier raises. The metaphors that Whittier describes are often painful to us, but she challenges us to confront that metaphoric—and infants’ real—pain. I invite you to continue this conversation by emailing your comments to me via the following address: lam@jhupress.jhu.edu. I look forward to hearing from you!